A Year Full of Young Moons

Photographer: Adeel Shafiq  
Summary Author: Adeel Shafiq

I embarked on a journey at the start of last year (2023) to observe photographically each young moon (waxing crescent moon) near my home in Lahore, Pakistan, which was a tough ask given the amount of dust and pollution in the air during the dry season and cloudy weather during the monsoon season. I had been chasing the thinnest of crescents for almost 2 years, each time trying to better my own record of capturing the least illuminated moon as it’s one of those exercises that tests not only your knowledge about the horizon, twilight and the ecliptic, but most importantly your patience. I was please to capture most of the monthly young moons with the youngest crescent being 22 hours old at 1 percent illumination.

A lunar month is the duration between two successive new moons and is also known as a synodic month with a mean period of 29.53 days. A new moon is always between the Sun and the Earth for any particular month and rises and sets with the Sun and travels across the Sun in close proximity. At new moon, the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned in space, with the Moon in the middle. The dark side of the Moon or its night side directly faces us making it invisible during a new moon phase. 

Photo Details: All images taken during twilight period shortly after sunset with Samyang 135mm f/2.2 lens attached to Canon 1300D; all images were cropped with same resolution without any de-rotation or resizing; each moon image is a single image with post processing done in Photoshop, collage was also created with the help of Photoshop 2023.

Lahore, Pakistan Coordinates: 31.582045, 74.329376

Related Links:
The Yin and Yang of the Lunar Cycle
Adeel’s Website